Lee Barry Composition Diary

2046 by Lee Barry Chord changes are major and minor versions of chords a tritone apart: C#/G/C#min/Gmin. Possible dark scoring , with low strings and tuba:

Achtung (2009) 11x14 gouache on paper $350 A visual riff on punctuation, similar to what Richard Artschwager did with the 'blips'.  Initial sketch from my journal:  

Miro-Mondrian 11"x14" acrylic on wool fabric The vertical and horizontal superimposed over the curvilinearity of Miro. #2013 #curves #texture #layered

        Hundreds of Arbitrary Decisions Made By Design  24" x 36" oil on canvas (unframed) (2009) $500 OBO Created in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Burnham Plan For Chicago , the grid-based process is in self-reference to the grid-based street layout of the city. A collectible work that may ultimately have increasing value at each future commemorative milestone:  2034 (125th), 2059 (150th), 2109 (200th). The intentional pixelization of the map to create "the grid", as well as colors used for land and water. From Dream cities: seven urban ideas that shape the world : Burnham went on to the biggest plan of his career: a regional city plan for his hometown, Chicago, completed in 1909, with Edward Bennett. As depicted in impressive watercolor renderings commissioned from the artist Jules Guerin, the city would be centered on a huge plaza, lined with white colonnaded buildings, all focused on a circular city hall topped wi...

Alpha States (2011) Inversions of intentional over-exposures.

    Timeline of Musical Influences (1966-2008) A timeline of my musical influences using a geological metaphor. The X-axis are the artists, the Y-axis the duration of the influences. The blue stars are the biggest influences. The intention would be to continue on past 2008, but interestingly, my musical influences have become less influential as my art influences have become more influential. [11/7/2025: Everything in modern life has gradually eroded since 1999, just when the oldest Millennials were my age when I first started playing music in 1977. And now those people are in their mid-40s. I still love music for the benefit of my mind and soul. So that’s what the Millennials will have to find at some point. I wonder what that is?  It was whatever they’re nostalgic for from 1988, 1997, 2008…Our nostalgias are different: I’m not particularly nostalgic for 2008 or after, which is perhaps why this ends at 2008].

                                    Color of Sound The prime objective of Color of Sound was to explore the boundary between music and the visual arts and to create works based on the color palettes. I had already devised several palettes, some of them inspired by the interpretations of composers such as Scriabin and Schoenberg, as well as the spatial representations of painters such as Kandinsky. One of the challenges of relating color to pitch is that both are highly subjective, and rely largely on metaphor, memory, and mnemonic devices. This music theory chart uses the metaphor of temperature (a range of blues for the sharp keys on the circle of fifths as "cool") and orange "warm" for the flat keys on the circle of fourths. It is an attempt to codify sound using this simple metaphor, but it is probably not what is experienced by synesthetics. Charles Lucy, a musician in England has expl...

Purchase at Amazon   The book has been updated to 3320 (Edition 23.2). It should refresh in the Kindle reader. If it hasn't, let me know.  Listen to the video for this range.  3311 has a music in it:   FYI starting January 20, 2026, Amazon will also offer EPUB and PDF formats in addition to the Kindle version.   *** All Analyses: Dynaxiom Shorts:   

Bass Fishing 27" x 7.5" round-wound strings, hardware, acrylic, mounted on plywood $250 An abstract double-metaphor, as a non-functional dummy musical instrument, and visual pun, using old bass strings with the abstract form of a fish with its look-alike form.

Reality Frames View the Series Series of 8x10 inch digital prints of photographs on vellum, using three overlays, with each printed layer decreased in size by 33%. Writer W.G. Sebald's "treatment" of images by running them through a copy machine was a way to portray the mercurial nature of memory. Many artists have used this technique extensively, including Thomas Barrow and his Varifax Prints , and Wade Guyton who uses printers as an art implement. Printers can make "original originals" instead of the mere reproduction of a digital instantiation of an original, such as a giclee print of a photograph of a painting. *** Framed as a triptych in 11x14 dark gray mat and white gallery frame. $225 My presentation about this series:

A conceptual series (in progress as a serial release) where all the pieces are exactly 1 minute long based on predetermined meters and bar lengths. (The antithesis of the sound that goes on infintely-- these are "sonic snacks".) Some of them are songs, some ambient textures, some field recordings, some are videos. Album 1: 1. 20 bars in 3/4, Tempo=60 2. 15 bars in 4/4, Tempo=60 3. 25 bars in 3/4, Tempo=75 4. 30 bars in 3/4, Tempo=90 5. 35 bars in 3/4, Tempo=105 6. 30 bars in 4/4, Tempo=120 7. (Open) 8. 45 bars in 3/4, Tempo=135 9. 50 bars in 3/4, Tempo=150 10. 55 bars in 3/4, Tempo=165 11. 45 bars in 4/4, Tempo=190 12. (Open) 13. 70 bars in 3/4, Tempo=210 14. 75 Bars in 3/4, Tempo=225 15. 60 bars in 4/4, Tempo=240 Album 2 (Sky Polaroids):

The "Elevations & Aerials" series of images are created with a custom algorithm whereby I transform my own photographs into fragmented, pixelated forms that take on an architectural quality, as if viewed as an elevation or aerial view of a structure or area of land. *** While not yet considered an art movement, the " New Aesthetic " is manifesting in a new look in art that is more pixelated in nature, or makes reference to computer-based or natively digital art. As Roy Lichtenstein was inspired by the Ben-Day Dot, I am inspired by the pixel as a way to recontextualize art. The works begin with pixels but I reshape them into new works that have a high resolution and print quality. Any of the pieces can be scaled up to very large sizes and can be printed on many types of media. " Masdar Strip " is also in this series. *** Since they are vector art, they have a very flat color look, and can be scaled up considerably.   #2013 #...

Photography Collection (2010-2014)  #chicagophotography #streetphotography #architecture

Photography Collection (2001-2009)  #chicagophotography #streetphotography #architecture

Exforma: Collected Writings (2002-2019) combines, in part, texts published originally on his electronic diary Musings on Music Mostly , and includes the updated and edited versions from older drafts and manuscript of a book titled Cusp--The Beauty of the Boundary , on the subject of boundaries as a metaphor in the arts, with essays The Threshold of 1966 , The Music of Language, The Music of Place and Photographism, Musicism and New Dialects for the Arts. The writings in 2002, were derived from the larger pre-existing chronological artist and studio diaries, used primarily for lyric ideas and musings about various topics of interest. After 9/11, intellectual debate was amplified on issues of anthropology, meta-geography, politics..., and the Internet was developing into a stage for these debates, that then evolved into social media as we know it today. Blogs began in 2004, which let writers experiment with ideas and share them with a wider public. This book is a distillation of some...

Interval Cubes Acrylic on panels P.O.R.    Inquire Download symbol (block) grid. (Adobe Illustrator) 12 cubes (6x6x2) for each interval in the chromatic scale using only black, white and red. Can be displayed on a shelf, or hung on a wall. Each cube is currently prepared for shelf display with felt on the back edges to prevent cubes from scraping. The cubes can also be tiled together in different ways like building blocks to teach chords and intervals. A very unique work done in the style of Josef Albers or Alexander Calder. Work is fully documented on its own website for information and archival purposes. Cube 1. Unison Cube 2. Minor Second Cube 3. Major Second Cube 4. Minor Third Cube 5. Major Third Cube 6. Perfect Fourth Cube 7. Diminished Fifth Cube 8. Perfect Fifth Cube 9. Minor Sixth Cube 10. Major Sixth Cube 11. Minor Seventh Cube 12. Major Seventh A symbol grid in Adobe Illustrator [Download .ai file] Drag symbols (blocks) and rearrange/rota...

Onement (2015) 4 x 20 gouache on paper $300 Homage to work by Barnett Newman and Rauschenberg's Automobile Tire Print. #vertical #parody

Sevenths (2014) 36" x 2.5" x .75" Acrylic on plywood $357 (Third, Fifth, Seventh)   As a part of the Intervals series, a wall sculpture of abstract representations of the intervals of major and minor sevenths. #geometric #minimalism #red #vertical             Photograph of the piece (2021):    

Plowden Bridge (2004) 2400x4200 pixels 8x14 print Edition of 10 An homage to photographer David Plowden Inquire about a print #black&whitephotography #urban #industrial #strength #steel #iron